CRISIS HELP NOW

In a Crisis now? Call us: 770-643-1114

“What should we do now?” “What should we say?”

How you answer the question “What should we do now?” can have far reaching implications for your company or organization. Preparedness and Resiliency are key brand attributes for every company. Crises come as surprises. Control of events and message are lost. Impacts accelerate. Public scrutiny intensifies.

Are you ready? How do you know? Are you sure?

Most executives are trained to make decisions based upon information, data, and policy. In a crisis,• Information is generally wrong• Data is not available• Policies do not exist• Command & Control is lost• Brand & reputation are under attack• Leadership is involved and engaged personally• Impacts are disproportional• Events are escalating• Speed is quality or even survival • You are the center of media focus

The above dynamics work aggressively against traditional empirical management decision processes. Decisions must be made quickly with limited and often incorrect information. A crisis is not business as usual. A crisis is business as unusual. Crises have a short duration, but have consequences that can determine the viability of a business or organization for years to come. If you are explaining, you are losing.

Crises have impacts – for good and bad. Every crisis starts with a combination of opportunity and danger. Where the risk/crisis conundrum balances depends upon your initial critical decisions, your crisis communications, your monitoring of events, and your adjustments made to strategy and actions as events develop. Your company’s reputation, brand, legacy, and profitability hang in the balance in a crisis. Crises are personal. Every crisis is a human crisis. It is your company. It is your people. It is your brand. It is your reputation. It is your career. Doing the wrong thing or doing nothing can create a point of no return.

The Team at Firestorm

Firestorm has a globally recognized group of contributors to this blog - Expert Speakers, Authors and Presenters, all highly credentialed and experienced in the field of crisis preparedness and crisis management.

ADVISORY - after the LinkedIn Hack - Protect your account and be cautious

After the LinkedIn Hack

Protect your account and be cautious

UPDATE: 6/7/2012:

LinkedIn said it is working with the FBI to investigate a cyber attack in which 6.5 million of its users' passwords were stolen.

The company told the Los Angeles Times that it is working with the federal agency after announcing on its blog that it was working with law enforcement to find more information about the recent hacking.

eHarmony and Last.fm have also confirmed attacks.

The aftermath of the breach of LinkedIn may effect more than just your password. A few points to be aware of after the breach of more than 6.5 million accounts on LinkedIn:

* If you have not changed your password, do so immediately. It only takes a minute. Use upper and lowercase letters mixed with numbers and characters. The more random the better. See: How to Change Your LinkedIn Password

"Members that have accounts associated with the compromised passwords will notice that their LinkedIn account password is no longer valid," said LinkedIn director Vicente Silveira, confirming that a breach had occurred.

He added: "These members will also receive an email from LinkedIn with instructions on how to reset their passwords.

"These affected members will receive a second email from our customer support team providing a bit more context on this situation and why they are being asked to change their passwords."

* Be cautious of invites to connect from random strangers: check out the account and profile - over the past 12 hours we've seen many new accounts with an obviously faked image or an image of an object rather than a person, misspellings, zero connections, etc.

* Be very cautious with regard to unsolicited offers of employment, business inquiries, or offers to "buy" what your current company sells. These may request personal information, or redirect to a website that does the same.

* Check your profile, outgoing messages, and messages in groups you manage to assure no messages have issued from your account that you did not author.

* If a request, message or profile looks suspicious, do not respond and report it. LinkedIn makes it easy to do this via the “Flag” icon on profiles, messages, and in group discussions.

"Yesterday we learned that approximately 6.5 million hashed LinkedIn passwords were posted on a hacker site. Most of the passwords on the list appear to remain hashed and hard to decode, but unfortunately a small subset of the hashed passwords was decoded and published.

To the best of our knowledge, no email logins associated with the passwords have been published, nor have we received any verified reports of unauthorized access to any member’s account as a result of this event.

Since we became aware of this issue, we have been taking active steps to protect our members. Our first priority was to lock down and protect the accounts associated with the decoded passwords that we believed were at the greatest risk. We’ve invalidated those passwords and contacted those members with a message that lets them know how to reset their passwords."

Comments

Leave your comment

Subscribe to this entry (Please fill in your email address to subscribe to blog updates.)

Newsletter Sign Up

Firestorm believes that crisis preparedness is predicated on recognition of imminent threats. Our weekly newsletter is an invaluable tool that reports on current conditions and issues, and includes original commentary and analysis from our Expert Council, Senior Leadership, and Guest Contributors. Valuable, insightful commentary analysis each week - and it's FREE! Sign up to receive these critical alerts

Download our Toolbar!

Register for an Event

Firestorm Events

Firestorm presents a variety of topical webinars each month for the business community presented by leading experts in their fields. Our Leadership Team and Expert Council present as Keynote Speakers, Program Presenters, and Panel Members at events across the country. Keep up to date and Join us!View our Upcoming Events...

Read Our Latest Analysis

Firestorm founders Harry Rhulen and Jim Satterfield wrote Disaster Ready People for a Disaster Ready America specifically to address the need for crisis and disaster preparedness at home, and the book has become a cornerstone of many personal and corporate preparedness programs.